IE8 Best at Stopping Social-Engineering Malware, Test Reports

Microsoft's latest browser, Internet Explorer 8, has gotten mixed reviews from MaximumPC.com readers (see comments here and here), but one question that's hard for any individual user to answer about any browser is "how secure is it?"

To find out, Microsoft asked NSS Labs to pit IE8 RC1 against its predecessor, IE7, as well as the following third-party browsers: Firefox 3.0.7, Safari 3.2, Chrome 1.0.154, and Opera 9.64. The objective: find out which browser did the best job at handling so-called social-engineering malware sites - the ones that try to con you into downloading malware disguised as something else ("Adobe Flash update," anyone?).

ComputerWorldreports that IE8 did the best job of fending off attacks from 492 malware-distributing websites, blocking 69% of attacks (details here [PDF link]). Here's how IE8 RC1 fared in comparison to the rest at blocking the bad guys:

Interestingly, ComputerWorldreports that Firefox, Safari, and Chrome all use Google's SafeBrowsing API, despite the big differences in success rates in stopping malware.

Microsoft was the sole funder of the study, which has caused some commentors to wonder how accurate it could be. See the update on PCMag's Security Watch story for a calmer re-evaluation of the funding issue, and to learn why depending upon your browser alone for protection isn't adequate.

Has "Hit the Jump" become MaximumPC's new tagline? Seriously, if I want to read more of an article, I do not need to be reminded on how to utilize a "clicking" function of the modern computer peripheral known as a "mouse" on a certain scripted button of a computer blog. :|

The major reason why the article authors place those taglines such as "Hit the jump" are to promote the community members to comment and disguss the article. Now I like my news plain and informative sometimes, but what seperates this website from others is the fact that that once sentence gives the article quite a personal feel.

Now granted there could be a bit more creativity to it, but some people just don't like spending minutes just thinking about what phrase will be more unique.